Tammie’s story

Mentee

Tammie’s story

Hey, I'm Tammie. I'm 24; I grew up in Wrexham, then moved to South Wales for University. I live in Blackwood now. I have consistently struggled with time management and balancing life. In school, you don’t get taught how to balance the demands of life. Its hard to balance self vs others and work vs daily life. I always got the balance wrong and would burn myself out.

Why did you choose to take part in 1MM's mentoring programme?

I was feeling overwhelmed with what I was going to do. I wanted something to help direct me. I wanted focused help on my career. When I began mentoring, I had just gone through a job change, so I was in a transition phase of my life. I was trying to move from the mental health sector into the environmental sector. The mentoring was able to help me figure out what to do with my extra hours as I was working part time. I also wanted to figure out my goals. The mentor was with me as I started my new job. I also wanted some accountability. If I set a goal, I want a person to ask me if I have done it. I wanted that person to motivate me. Someone to come with me in the journey and be my cheerleader.

What has been the best thing about having a mentor?

The best thing about having a mentor is having that nonjudgemental 1-2-1 space where I can set goals and be held accountable for them. It helped to motivate me to balance my life better! It also gave me a lot of confidence as my mentor would compliment my skills and how well I was doing! I also got suggested reading based on my struggles which is really useful to use beyond our mentoring meetings. Mentoring when you have finished school is great because you have someone to hold you accountable for goals. Once you are out of education, there are no deadlines anymore. You have to do that yourself, so having someone to motivate you is really important. Mentoring is ’Ansbaradigaethus’ (that means ‘amazing’ in Welsh!).

What has mentoring taught you?

A lot of the conversations we had was how to schedule my time and how to motivate myself and find opportunities to help me with volunteering in my community. My mentor spoke a lot of about using creative ways to achieve goals because he saw I was a very creative person and that I enjoy doing things differently. I have found that using my creativity in this way helps me stay motivated to complete a goal! Throughout mentoring, I was able to increase my confidence. I was able to volunteer for the environmental sector and now I am volunteering for the Wild life Trust Gwent and now I am also part of the youth council for the woodland trust. I am just really grateful for the time I had with my mentor.